Wauchope Water Treatment Plant

The $25 million Wauchope Water Treatment Plant has been designed to improve the drinking water quality for all consumers in the Hastings and to better achieve the quality standards set by the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines.

The plant will filter the drinking water for the Wauchope water supply scheme, which includes the Wauchope, Beechwood, King Creek and Sancrox areas. 

In addition, water conditioning facilities will help to stabilise the alkalinity and pH of all water pumped from the Hastings River before it is stored in the Port Macquarie and Cowarra off-creek storage dams.

The facility will include a water treatment plant building, clear water pumping station, five megalitre clear water reservoir, sewerage pumping station as well as educational facilities to further enhance Council's WaterWise education and community awareness program.

The plant will have a daily water treatment capacity of six megalitres, with the ability for future upgrading to 18 megalitres per day. The project has been a joint undertaking of Port Macquarie-Hastings Council and the NSW Department of Commerce and Department of Energy, Utilities and Sustainability.

Why do we filter the Wauchope Water Supply?

When the region experiences extended periods of rain, the river gets muddy and the water quality in the river becomes unsuitable for drinking. 

This is not a problem for town water because the dams hold enough water to last for a couple of years. So, if water quality drops Council simply stops pumping and waits for the river water quality to improve.

The Wauchope Water Supply does not have a dam. It relies on its main 1 ML reservoir (Rosewood # 1). In the past, Council used to "back-feed" water from the Port Macquarie Dam back up to Wauchope when its reservoir ran out due to poor river water quality conditions.

With the new Wauchope Water Treatment Plant, provided the river flow exceeds minimum environmental and water quality levels, Council can pump water for the Wauchope water supply 365 days of the year.

The filtered water produced in the Wauchope plant is good enough to bottle! The bottled water you buy is probably filtered using similar micro-filtration technology.

Council provides bottled Hastings Water to people affected when their water supply is disrupted or turned off for emergency repairs.

A Reclaimed Water Treatment Plant is now on the drawing board for the Wauchope township. It would take the treated effluent and further treat it to produce six star quality reclaimed water. The reclaimed water would be used for non-potable purposes such as: irrigation; toilet flushing; vehicle washing; and dust suppression on construction sites.

The Treatment Process:

1. Rain falls in the catchment The water journey begins when a cloud bursts and rain falls in the 3,846 km² Hastings Catchment which stretches from Mount Seaview Range down the Hastings Valley and to the sea. The water flows into the Hastings River and soaks into the ground to become groundwater, which also feeds the river.
2. We harvest water from the Hastings River Port Macquarie-Hastings Council harvests water from the river with three pumping stations at Koree Island. The pumping stations can all supply this Water Treatment Plant, but for simplicity we will follow the journey from Koree #3, which is fully automated, and only pumps when the river exceeds minimum environmental flows and predetermined water quality parameters.
3. Water is dosed with lime as it is pushed uphill The water is pushed uphill through a 959mm pipe called a rising water main. Lime is injected into the water as the main passes underneath the blue shed at the front of the plant. This is the first step in a two step water conditioning process.
4. A shot of CO2 is added to complete the conditioning The CO2 is injected shortly after the lime. The water conditioning process helps to increase the alkalinity and stabilize the pH of the water. Our river water chemistry is slightly corrosive and without conditioning it would slowly eat away at the concrete lining of our pipes and reservoirs.
5. Chlorine is added to keep the water and the pipes clean We have to add a small dose of sodium hypochlorite (chlorine) to disinfect the water and to ensure it remains free of bacteria throughout its long journey to the taps. The water conditioning makes the chlorine disinfection process more effective. This means that we do not need to use as much chlorine as we did before the water conditioning plant was built!
6. The water is stored in Rosewood #3 Reservoir... The water is temporarily stored in the 10 Megalitre (ML) Rosewood #3 Reservoir. When more filtered water is needed for Wauchope, the valves can be opened to allow water to flow back downhill to the Water Treatment Plant. The entire water supply can be run on automatic pilot using sophisticated computers that "talk" to each other using telemetry.
7. The water enters the Water Treatment Plant and is strained The water passes through a self cleaning strainer which removes larger contaminants. It is unlikely that any leaves or twigs would be present, but we strain the water to protect the membranes in the microfiltration cell from possible damage.
8. The water is filtered through the Microfiltration Cell The water enters the Microfiltration Cell and is sucked up through the 0.04 micron holes in the spaghetti-like hollow membranes. Water molecules are able to pass through the tiny holes. Dirt, bacteria and most viruses are too big to fit through the holes and get left behind.
9. The filtered water is pumped to the Clear Water Reservoir The filtered water is pumped into the 5 Megalitre (ML) Clear Water Reservoir outside the Water Treatment Plant building.
10. The filtered water is pumped uphill to Rosewood #1 Reservoir The filtered water is pumped back uphill to Rosewood #1 Reservoir. We monitor the water quality and can add extra chlorine up at Rosewood Road if necessary.
11. Crystal clear water flows to the taps Water flows downhill from the reservoir to supply Wauchope, Beechwood, King Creek, Sancrox and surrounding areas.

Three Villages Water Micro-filtration Plants - Long Flat, Telegraph Point and Comboyne

A $7.5 million investment in the Port Macquarie-Hastings district water supply scheme is delivering high quality, crystal clear drinking water to the district's rural village residents.

Port Macquarie-Hastings Council's Three Villages Water Micro-filtration Plant project has been lauded as an innovative and state-of-the-art system at both the Engineers Australia (Newcastle Division) Engineering Excellence Awards 2006 and the Institute of Public Works (IPWEA) NSW Engineering Excellence Awards 2006.

The water treatment plants situated at Comboyne, Long Flat and Telegraph Point utilise submerged membrane micro-filtration technology to produce high quality drinking water for communities who have traditionally encountered fluctuating water quality from direct river pumping systems.

The plants are fully automated with continuous monitoring of water quality parameters throughout the entire treatment process, ensuring the final product complies with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines 2004.

How do the Three Villages Water Micro-filtration Plants work?

The Three Villages project combines original and ingenious solutions - membrane technology, backwash irrigation and PLC-based plant control systems.

The membranes used within each system consists of tiny hollow fibres with miniscule holes (0.04 microns), which allow water molecules to pass through but the membranes act as a buffer to sediment and contaminants.

Thousands of these membrane fibres are bundled together to form a module.

When a reservoir 'calls' for water, pumps transfer raw water directly from the river into a membrane tank via an automatic flushing Thompson Filter which removes large debris from the river water.

The raw water is pre-dosed with sodium hypochlorite to disinfect and discourage algal growth on the membranes. It then enters the membrane tank and is drawn through the membranes with a vacuum suction.

Impurities and contaminants remain trapped on the outside of the membranes while the 'clear water' is diverted to a clear water tank ready for use.

This process is automatically monitored by an intelligent Programmable Logic Control (PLC) program to ensure the efficient operation of the plant.

When water turbidity in the river is high, the plants automatically switch to 'river dirty' mode. Stored water in the main town reservoirs is first used to meet village requirements allowing the plant to operate at minimal capacity until the river water quality settles.

Back-to-earth philosophy

The potential to re-use backwash water from the treatment plant cleaning process has provided an alternative water resource in each village.

At Comboyne, the water treatment plant is located adjacent to the showground. An automatic irrigation system and sub-soil drainage was installed at the showground greatly improving the amenity of the playing surface.

The Long Flat water treatment plant is located near the Long Flat Public School, a small school of 35 students.

Council installed an automatic irrigation system on the school field - the only one of its kind at any school in the Hastings.

The Long Flat WTP project also included restoration and enhancement of riparian vegetation to restore and stabilise a degraded section of the riverbank.

The backwash water from the Telegraph Point water treatment plant is used for irrigation by a dairy farm adjacent to the facility.

All irrigation systems are controlled, maintained and monitored by Council.